Bottle from Stacks (presumably, as it was a Christmas gift).
A: clear golden, thin, off-white head.
A: wheat, lemon, coriander, soap, white bread.
T: sweetish apple, sourish lemon & wheat, spices.
F: soft grassy hops, soapy & bitter coriander, wheat.
P: medium body, slick texture, soft carbonation.
Quite soapy and messy, alas.

Blonde beer commissioned by a beer wholesaler in Limburg, advertised as a three-grains beer, though oddly the ingredients list only mentions barley malt - so I guess this beer does not really contains three different grains, but three different barley malts (which must all be Pilsener malts considering the looks of it, weirdly)... Huge, foamy, egg-white, papery lacing, very moussey, stable head on an initially crystal clear, pale yellow golden beer with vague 'old golden' tinge and disparate but very active sparkling feeding the head, turning misty and a bit more ochre-ish with sediment. Aroma of raw cereals, white bread dough, white soap, banana peel, wet white paper, glue, grass, buttercups, margarine, oxidized green apple slices, unripe pear, sour sweat, hint of unripe green plums in spring, iron, potato soup gone sour. Crisp, mildly fruity onset with notes of unripe pear, halfripe banana and ripe green apple, sweetish but not sweet, with moderate, softly tingling, minerally carbonation; underneath this subdued and superficial sweetishness, a deeper sourishness lurks, persisting all the way through, reminiscent of spoiled potato or courgette soup. Supple, slender body, bit glueish, grainy indeed with some thin pale malt (white) breadiness but generally feeling very Pilsener- or Dortmunder-like; floral and grassy hops appear in the end but very softly so, with a superficial bitterness on the surface of the tongue, yet still managing to add lasting, almost saison-ish dryness and body to an otherwise straightforwardly grainy finish. There is a clear sourish graininess and glueishness to it all, making me suspect that indeed some other grain species could have been used (perhaps spelt, or buckwheat) but remains undisclosed, as it is nowhere explicitly mentioned, not even in the press release; I see no reason why this element should remain shrouded in mystery, guess I will have to ask this beer wholesaler if I ever meet him, but in any case it does not help the fact that as a whole, this is the umpteenth clean, pale blonde 'blond' trying to compete with the still almighty pale lager and that to me is still a dodgy starting point when creating a top-fermented Belgian style beer. We are not impressed - but that refined floral and grassy hop bitterness does try to save the day here and I can appreciate that.

Tripel aged on oak chips, vaguely "brewed in Ghent" according to the label but it is no secret that the exact location is BeerSelect in Sint-Denijs-Westrem, submunicipality of Ghent. One of those 'ultracommercial' beers developed by an entrepreneur (a plumbing company in Kalken apparently) who has sensed that money is to be made with local beers nowadays, attaching a story to it about women generally not liking beer and therefore feeling the need to brigde the - non-existent - gap and creating a beer for both men (with their "raw primal instinct", quote their website!) and women (with their "softness", ditto). It is odd to see a way of thinking like this still being used in 2024 as a starting point for commercialising a beer and I know a lot of beer-drinking women who will justly be offended by this - so we are starting off on the wrong foot here, I think... Implied misogyny aside - even if the entrepreneur in question deliberately tries to achieve the opposite, claiming that he used a half-male, half-female tasting panel to test this beer - it is also annoying that the label on the beer itself does not openly mention the brewery. Anyway: egg-white, intricately cobweb-lacing, medium thick, quite dense and moussey, slightly breaking but generally very stable head on an initially crystal clear pale and pure yellow-golden beer with a disparate 'suspension' of yeast floating in the middle, turning misty and deeper 'old gold' with sediment. Rather uninviting aroma of green banana, apple peel, raw potato, wet straw, ferrous spring water, wet kitchen towels, unripe apricot, very faint smoky touch of wood chips but almost nothing of the oaky vanillin it is supposed to exude, petrichor, jute rope, old dry cereals from a dusty bag. Sweetish onset but clean and sleek, unripe apricot and green banana again, low in esters, with dim sourish undertone persisting throughout the whole thing; sharpish carb with minerally effect accentuating that sour element. Very slick cereally and slightly rusk-like maltiness with a vague metallic touch around the edges, sweetish with soft bitterish toasty note, bittering in the end from the drying effect of the oak chips (again completely dull and lacking retronasal vanilla) and herbal, floral hops, above which a hint of clove hovers. Slight 'jenever'-like alcohol in the finish but fortunately at least this aspect remains firmly in place without disturbing the rest - not that there is so much to disturb, because this is simply the umpteenth run-of-the-mill tripel for the masses churned out by the BeerSelect factory. There is nothing more (or less) 'male' or 'female' about this beer than any other tripel of the same characterless, sleek, impersonally commercial vein, and the fact alone that this commissioner highlights gender differences so emphatically makes my male "raw primal instinct", paired with countless tastings of similarly bland tripels, simply say no. Boring, redundant, annoyingly sourish and metallic beer that adds literally nothing to the East-Flemish beer landscape.

Bottle from a quiz prize.
A: clear amber, small, off-white head.
A: plum, unripe red apple, fruit cake, sherry, wood.
T: sweetish plum, sourish berry, biscuit, sherry.
F: herbal hops, wet wood, warming (old) white wine- or sherry-like alcohol.
P: medium body, slick texture, average carbonation.
Not really successful in the Chardonnay department, and not really a Tripel anyway. Okay.

Smooth fruity beginning. Creamy, moderate bitter with a grainy bitter herbal aftertaste. Bitter herbs, some Witbier-yeast, not too drinkable. --- Beer merged from original tick of Turbeau The Great White on 01 Apr 2024 at 19:44 - Score: 6. Original review text: Smooth fruity beginning. Creamy, moderate bitter with a grainy bitter herbal aftertaste. Bitter herbs, some Witbier-yeast, not too drinkable.

Almost clear golden beer with a small white head. Aroma of mid sweet pale malt, some honey, belgian yeast. Taste of herbal and mild sweet pale malt, spices, yeast and honey.

Can at the office.
A: hazy golden, thin, white head.
A: honey, pale malt, cereals, gooseberry, mandarin.
T: sweet honey, yeast, white bread, sourish berry & mandarin.
F: soft floral hops, sweet yeast & pale malt.
P: medium body, watery texture, soft carbonation.
Doesn't really deliver and weird to call this a Pils in the first place.

'Pils' flavoured with sea buckthorn berries, commissioned by Seaberry Liquids, a company set up by a chef to produce liqueur made of sea buckthorn - now followed by this beer, executed at BeerSelect (not a coincidence: the chef in question apparently works at LOF, a restaurant in the Hoogstraat in Ghent). Thick and foamy, egg-white, fizzing, very moussy, lightly lacing head sustained by a 'tornado' of champagne-like sparkling fiercely rushing through a clear, warm and pure 'old gold'-coloured beer turning into a misty yellow gold with sediment - looks beautiful. Perfumey and unexpectedly sweet aroma of mandarin juice, exotic citrus (pomelo, even lime blossom), strong guava, pitaya, white bread, blossom-scented shower gel, dry straw, hint of raw potato underneath the perfume. Sweetish onset but not overly sugary or sticky, clean and sleek with notes of freshly cut apple, guava, prickly pear and mandarin, minerally side notes but more softly carbonated than expected based on looks, supple and slightly oily mouthfeel, slender; clean-edged cereally to lightly white-bready pale maltiness under this guava- and mandarin-like 'perfume', feeling a tad artificial and not quite reminiscent of actual sea buckthorn berries, before a mild floral hop bitter note brings the ride to an end. I recall sour ales made with real sea buckthorn and its astrigent, tart effects, but nothing of that is to be found here: surely this contains some or other aroma based on these berries, but I doubt if any actual berry ever touched the beer. Perfumed version of a standard pale lager (though I doubt if it is actually a lager in the technical sense of the word - rather a Belgian style blonde I suspect), which, if I would be really mean, can be said of awful things like Desperados and the like as well - and though something does feel a bit 'unnatural' here, the base is certainly more honest and solid than those abhorrent industrial mouthwashing products so I will not be too harsh on this novelty. I was just expecting more real sea buckthorn tartness, but got a kind of sweet guava-like drink instead... Odd and a bit of an artificially tinged one-trick pony, but not undrinkable, I am sure many sweet fruit beer lovers will be able to enjoy this.

A fairly recent addition to the Eastern Flemish beer scene, this beer tries to connect beer to wine and is effectively a tripel infused with white wine, produced in BeerSelect’s kettles in commission of the creator, located in Assenede (in the Meetjesland region northwest of Ghent). Bottle at Café ‘t Schoon Zicht in Mariakerke, cheers Gido! Snow white, frothy and thick, bubbly, stable head over an initially clear, orange-glowing deep golden beer with lots of visible sparkling, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of apricot, red apple, cooked carrot, ‘wet dog’, some iron and something sulfuric, indeed a sweet white wine hint, wet kitchen towels, wet cardboard perhaps, withering grass. Sweet, cleanly fruity onset, pear, cooked red apple and apricot, but surprisingly little grape at least in the beginning – apart from a persistent sourish undertone running till the end. Medium carbonated, very slick body, smooth cereally and very lightly caramelly malt sweetishness, straightforward with a very mild floral hop bitterish touch in the end but primarily a retronasal effect of damp kitchen towels and slight iron. Some vague grape sour-sweetness does linger about in the end, along with a dash of warming alcohol, but for a beer presenting itself as “from hops and grapes”, I expected it to be much more grape- or wine-forward; Italian grape ale the Belgian way? Not too impressed by this: see Italy’s grape ales for truly great examples of how to connect wine to beer…

Dumpy 33cl bottle: BB 20th June 2024. Poured into a Duvel glass (2000 version) at home on 18th September 2023 during a random tasting session with myself. No sediment left the bottle (will add it later) so I've got a lovely golden amber beer, clear and clean looking, on top a thin white blanket of foam. Yeasty front with a white wine like undertone, feels like it might cause a hangover to me. Peachy taste in with the wine flavours, interesting. OK, time to add the sediment; last third of the beer now a murky, sediment floating mess. More yeasty, more 'winey' and more 'boozy', it's like two different beers in one bottle, I think I preferred the cleaner first pour, but the latter is also fine for those that like to have the whole bottle and I'm sure it will 'aid my digestion system' in the morning!